April 19, 2012

So something they should have told me about a mission is that teaching families requires a lot of things to entertain children. Sometimes I feel like I'm a primary teacher. I made a the matching game but with the commandments to help keep our investigators children interested during our lessons

Hermana Lema doubted my game so I made her play with me and she ended up having a great time

Ricardo's Baptism

Kervin 's Baptism

Me and Moises! Moises is the little Brother of Dayne. He has down syndrome and is an absolute riot! He loves Justin Bieber music. The other day I started singing baby to him and now she is my new best friend. Whenever he sees me he starts says "Chica Chica!!!" and he will start singing "Baby baby baby Oh!!" Its adorable!

Hermana Lema reached one year on her mission so we celebrated with Ice cream. I take a lot of pride in this pictures because I can never get Hermana Lema to take silly faced pictures I am always trying to force her to do it and this time she did it without me even asking! Little by little I'm breaking her out of her shell ha-ha

Another week come and gone here in Lima. This week was crazy busy, crazy fun and crazy stressful! We had two baptisms. Ricardo y Kervin. Ricardo is ten years old. His family has been inactive for five years. Working with him and his family has been amazing. Not only were we able to help someone progress to baptism but we were able to reactivate his family! His Dad was able to perform the baptism and now has a new calling teaching Elders Quorum. Hermana Lema and I have asked for a list from our primary of the children that haven't been baptized because this experience really has been so wonderful. We hope that we can find other families like Ricardo where we can help them relight that fire that they once had for the Gospel.

Our second baptism was 19 year old Kervin. We had been teaching him for a long time now. Always knowing that there was a chance of him moving back to Argentina. He was here looking for work but if he couldn't find it within a certain time line he would have to move back. Honestly he wasn't really excited to meet with us up till about two weeks ago. After general conference he was really excited about the gospel and wanted to be baptized. But it was really certain that he could be moving back to Argentina. He didn't have the money to buy a ticket back so it would all depend on when his Grandma bought the ticket. We explained to him that he could get baptized in Argentina if he didn't get the chance here but he really wanted to get baptized here because he has friends in this ward and his Cousin and Aunt are members. We told him to pray and if it was the Lords will he could be baptized here. His baptism was set for the 14th. His Grandma bought him a ticket for the 16th. It was exciting that we would get to see his baptism, but also really hard to know that we wouldn't be able to keep an eye on him after words. He has a friend who is a member of the church in Argentina so we had his cousin email his friend to ensure that he would help him make it to church and help him with the temptations that are sure to come. I hope and pray he does all he can to stay strong. He has a lot of potential. I hope he doesn't forget that.

This week we also taught a lesson that really taught me a lot. We were explaining a commandment and our investigator said something that really struck me. She said, "I knew what I was doing was wrong. . . I just didn't realize that God cared. Now that I know he cares I never want to do something that will make his sad again." For me this was a moment really beautiful. I could see and feel that she was experiencing true repentance. When we change our ways based off a love of our Heavenly Father. I think sometimes we forget that commandments are set by a LOVING Heavenly Father. He gives us commandments to protect us and to help us live lives that are happy and fulfilling.

Anyhow this week was really good. Stressful and crazy busy but really good.
I hope I don't sound like a baby by saying this, but if any of my Amigos are reading this I would really love to hear from you. I know you are all crazy busy with weddings, babies and boys. . . but I really do miss you all and I want to know about the changes your lives are taking. I know it's been a while, but don't forget about me just yet.

Happy Easter. Easter in Peru wasn't really all the different than any other day. That's kind of how missions are. The only difference was Thursday night pretty much everyone was getting wasted to celebrate the start of Semana Santa or Holy Week. For me the concept of getting drunk to remember Christ suffering for us seems a bit odd. . . but yeah.

I explained to Hermana Lema what we usually do for Easter. Coloring Eggs and Easter Egg hunts. It was all really weird to her ha-ha. After I explained it all she just asked me what Eggs have to do with Jesus. In her culture for Easter they cook a huge lunch and all go eat at the cemetery, then the leave a bunch of food on the graves for the spirits of their ancestors to come eat. It's funny how I think coloring eggs is just a normal thing and she thinks picnicking in a graveyard is normal. You have to love those culture differences ha-ha.

We are still doing good. Just doing our best here in Antares. We have plans for four baptisms this month. We will have to see. I get nervous when I don't feel like our investigators really understand the importance of the change that they are making in their lives.

It really is a huge change. The norms for the world and for the church are really different. This can make it really hard for our converts. That's why they need a lot of help, love and support from the church members because without that support they will go back to their old life and old ways.

I'm going to make this email short cuz I have lots of photos I want to send.
I hope that I will be hearing from you all really soon.
Love Always Hermana Sadie Taggart

Another week come and gone here in Peru. This week was good. Somewhat stressful but good. We had two ward activities this week that bombed. . . which for me was SUPER sad. You all know how I am about parties. Not to boast, but I throw some darn good parties, and I know if I had the time and the resources we could have some killer ward activies. But without help from our ward and without a ward mission leader. . . it's really tough.

One thing I never knew before serving a mission was how much of my mission would be about strengthening the ward. I just thought we would baptize people and the ward would be waiting there with open arms ready to bring them in . . . and perhaps in some areas that's how it is ha-ha, poca a poca we are getting there with our ward. It's just tough. But we will get there. Antares has great members. Once we can get them unified they will be even better.

So remember that Moves like Jager song that was popular and super over played in the states before my mission. . . well it just hit Peru. . . Ugh down every road, every car the passes by. I got them moves like Jager. Over and Over again. Sadly I have to relive that song getting over played haha.

Today was Pday where we got to leave our area. We got permission to go to Mira Flores which is basically like Gringolandia. It's a touristy area by the beach. Seriously I am just as bad as the people from Peru, I was just staring at them all. I forgot how many white people in the world there are and how different they all look haha. It was super weird to be in a touristy area. They had American food, the buildings were different, there were white people. It was weird but I felt super out of place. It was fun to see the ocean and go bowling, but by the end of the day I wanted to go back to my home in Antares. I never thought I would feel at home in that place but today I felt home sick, but for my area. Crazy ha-ha

Someone from the states was telling me a bit about the elections. Must admit I would really like to get updated on that. I wonder how its effecting state side missionaries to have a member of the church running for office. Crazy. Courtney if you are reading this I'm waiting for my political update!

Basically this week was really good. We have two baptisms coming up on the fourteenth of April. One of them is a 19 year old named Kebin. He really wants to make a difference in people's lives and help them come closer to Christ. Our first lesson with him he told us he wanted to serve a mission. Wow ha-ha. How about Baptism first. He is excited. He came with us to general conference and he has a really good friend that is a returned missionary. Really the best missionaries are the ones without plaques. Members make the BIGGEST difference.

I think that's about all for this week.
Happy Easter.
Love Hermana Taggart

PS. Did you all listen to that conference talk where that one guy said to write missionaries. Yeah follow the counsel of your church leaders! I will be waiting for my letters. Love you all! Bye!

To Learn About the LDS Church Click on the Photo

Missionary Scripture

John 21:17"He saith unto him the third time, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me? Peter was grieved because he said unto him the third time, Lovest thou me? And he said unto him, Lord, thou knowest all things; thou knowest that I love thee. Jesus saith unto him, Feed my sheep."